Thanks for the tips everyone. My colleague is arranging for a van to pick us up -- haven't received the details as yet. I've tentatively booked a hotel for one night in haidian -- our apartment is a university one, so I can't imagine it will be quite liveable on arrival, and at any rate, I won't have a key. I'll wait to hear back what my work suggests, however.

Fingers crossed it won't all go belly up -- I think my china sim phone credit expired in early september, so I hope we won't have to make any late night calls.

Look forward to being a member of the BJ community.

tb